Becoming Efficient At Clearing Infected Cities.
The addition of the prize tier for clearing infected cities (ICs) has become an integral part of the Empire Z experience. An alliance that is proficient and active when it comes to clearing ICs will provide an ample opportunity for its members to grow without spending money on the game. The individual gifts along with advanced speed ups, coins, and chests provide players with means necessary to grow within the game. Also, clearing ICs allows the players to collect some powerful infected leaders. Over the last few months, I have gained several incredible infected leaders from larger level tiles. In fact, I picked up three out of my four leaders for a defensive set-up from higher level ICs. However, there was a learning curve involved before I became effective and efficient enough to burn Level 20 ICs without losing tens of thousands of troops. In this article, I will write, in detail, about this learning curve. # Research. The need for offensive and defensive research cannot be overstated in Empire Z. It doesn't matter whether we're talking about clearing ICs, fending off a possible basing, attacking, or farming: maxing out your research is an absolute necessity. Many players in this game only have the basic level of research level needed to gain advanced troops and that just won't cut it. When the new IC feature came about, I had only completed the first level on Ranger Specification. Maxing this out drastically improved my ability to clear ICs without losing copious amounts of troops. As such, if you don't your research done, start getting after it now. # Infected Leaders. Having the right combination of leaders makes or breaks your ability to clear ICs. To start with, I suggest that every player work towards getting their hero to Raid Level 31. This is a long, time consuming process but it's well worth it in the end as you'll gain a Level 10 Giest. The Geist is a fantastic leader for hitting ICs and has worked well in all of the combinations of leaders that I have. For players starting out, you can pick up Ghosts (solid IC clearing leaders) and other Infected Leaders that boost infantry attack by clearing ICs, in the Z-Store, or by going to the Infected Lab. When starting out, you'll end up with lower tier leaders that may not be worth maxing out; just toss them on your marches and get to work hitting ICS. Once you have collected a few quality leaders and maxed them out, it's a good idea to test out various combinations and see which one is the most effective when clearing ICs. Don't rely solely on the boost percentages as, in true Ember fashion, they don't always add up. For example, I was operating with a Geist, Dead Bark, Bumble and Death as Geist provides me with a Infected City Attack boost while the others increase my infantries' attack ability. However, I found that swapping out a Ghost (another leader that boosts Infected City Attack ability) for my Death resulted in 33% more zombies killed on tiles, every time. This is a case of the percentages not adding up as the Death should have produced more kills as it has a 400% Infantry attack boost, versus the Ghost's 200% Infected City Attack boost. # Human Leaders. Many of the human leaders (particularly epic human leaders) provide an infected city attack boost. I suggest folks save up their tokens, craft epic human leaders, and start maxing them out. I, personally, only operate with epic leaders in my city and use the lower level leaders to train and promote my epic leaders. Also, don't forget that increasing raid levels on human levels increases their boosts. My human leaders leave a bit to be desired at this point; I use a Level 31 Kyle and a Level 31 Nightingale to hit ICs. Both of these leaders have decent Infected City Attack boosts and have helped to save me a ton of rangers when I'm on IC runs. There are other human leaders with better IC clearing stats but the ones I have now do the trick. # Hero Spec. I have found that having my hero spec'd to attack and defend has made IC hits much more effective. I max-out both tiers of: Call To Arms, Special Forces, Health Food, and Hunker Down when I'm clearing ICs. Initially, I only maxed out Call to Arms and Special Forces but found that I lost fewer rangers on tiles by boosting my marches' defensive abilities. # One-Trooping. There are experienced players who don't follow this protocol when hitting ICs but I still do. It takes longer to clear ICs but I lose far fewer troops when I do it. Here is the gist of it: I send ONE ranger at an IC with all of my leaders attached to it. I pull up the attack report and do some simple math: divide the total number of infected on the tile by the number killed by your single troop and that will give you a ballpark figure for how large your first march needs to be. Now, if that number is abnormally large, I don't even bother with the IC; I just move on. Especially when it states that I need an high number of troops for a lower level IC: I'm not going to send a march of 30k+ troops at a Level 15 IC. However, if the numbers look reasonable, I round up to the nearest thousand in troops and attack the IC. Most of the time, this march clears out the weaker troops in the IC and I'll need to one-troop it again to see how many troops I need to finish it off. This actually turns out to your favor as multiple swipes at an IC gives you a better chance at gaining more Infected Leaders. I picked up my first Bumble (an excellent tile clearing and defensive leader) and a Saint Valentine (one of the better defensive leaders in the game) off of first hits on a Level 20 tile. There are many times when I am pleasantly surprised and it only takes one march to clear a high level tile. I have cleared several Level 20 tiles with 5k or less rangers in one hit. This approach to clearing ICs should be used by beginning players or players without a solid IC attack set up as they can't afford to lose massive amounts of troops on tiles. And, again; the more swipes you take, the higher the probability that you'll pick up leaders. # Random Teleporting. I know that many players scan the map for specific ICs, use a normal port and hit it. This, to me, is a waste of a teleport. I have a large stash of random teleports, as do most players, and I use these when I'm on an IC run. I will random teleport to an area, look for ICs I want to hit, pop a few and random port to another area. Every so often, I will scan for Level 20s and use normal teleports but that's generally when I'm in a rush to meet my IC point quota for the week or I'm looking to pick up some higher level leaders. # The High Level Versus Low Level Debate. In all reality, you get more bang for your buck by hitting lower level ICs when you have a decent set-up and your research done.You'll lose fewer troops while still picking up IC points, leaders, gifts, etc.. There are players in my alliance that burn hundreds of lower level ICs in the space of a few hours without losing many troops which is fantastic for everyone involved. However, I still prefer to clear Level 16+ tiles as they're worth far more IC points and you receive more gifts per tile. At the end of the day, I know that I lose more troops while providing fewer gifts for the alliance but this all comes down to one thing for me: gaining quality infected leaders. At this point, both of my cities are filled with exceptional leaders from hitting higher level ICs. And, to be blunt, there are weeks when I just don't have the time to to spend clearing lower level ICs to meet my quota. # Meat Shields. This is an addition to what I wrote previously. Over the last six months, I have been playing with an alliance that are incredibly knowledgable when it comes to clearning ICs and I've picked up a few tips from them. One of the most beneficial was the use of T3 infantry (Soldier) meat shields along with my Rangers when hitting ICs. After one-trooping and figuring out how many Rangers to throw at a tile, I send an equal number of Soliders. This has cut down on my Ranger losses by an average of 75%. The Soldiers take the beating and die (very few are hospitilazied) but the Rangers walk away virtually unscathed. # Ramses! I picked up a Ramses Infected leader during an event a few months ago and he has been invaluable when it comes to clearing ICs. This is a leader that is easily attainable in events and has been in the Z-Store once; pick him up if you're serious about clearing ICs. He not only provides attacking power on ICs but he also has a death protection boost. Combining him with T3 meat shields has allowed me to clear 10 million points worth of ICs in an hour or so while only losing around 100-200k Rangers. Well, if you finished reading this without going blind, kudos. I hope that what I have posted helps folks when clearing ICs. If you have read this and have anything to add, feel free to do so.